Darby O'Gill and the Little People

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Darby O'Gill and the Little People
Darby o gill and the little people.jpg
Film poster by Reynold Brown
Directed byRobert Stevenson
Written byH. T. Kavanagh (stories)
Lawrence Edward Watkin
Produced byBill Anderson
Walt Disney
StarringAlbert Sharpe
Janet Munro
Sean Connery
Jimmy O'Dea
Kieron Moore
Estelle Winwood
Walter Fitzgerald
CinematographyWinton Hoch
Edited byStanley Johnson
Music byOliver Wallace
Production
company
Distributed byBuena Vista Distribution
Release dates
  • June 24, 1959 (1959-06-24) (Dublin)[1]
  • June 26, 1959 (1959-06-26) (Los Angeles)[1]
Running time
93 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box officeOriginal release:
$2.6 million (est. US/ Canada rentals)[2]
1969 re-release:
$2.3 million (US/ Canada rentals)[3]

Darby O'Gill and the Little People is a 1959 American fantasy adventure film produced by Walt Disney Productions, adapted from the Darby O'Gill stories of Herminie Templeton Kavanagh. Directed by Robert Stevenson and written by Lawrence Edward Watkin, the film stars Albert Sharpe as O'Gill alongside Janet Munro, Sean Connery, and Jimmy O'Dea.

Plot[]

Darby O'Gill and his young adult daughter Katie have long lived in the small Irish town of Rathcullen, where Darby works as the somewhat neglectful live-in caretaker of Lord Fitzpatrick's estate and spends his time poaching rabbits and regaling pub-goers with his fantastical stories of meeting leprechauns. Despite Lord Fitzpatrick's fondness for Darby, Fitzpatrick has decided to send the elderly Darby into retirement and replace him with the young Dubliner Michael McBride.

Darby, however, is unwilling to acknowledge this shift in his career path. He prevails upon Michael to hide the development from Katie for two weeks, the time Fitzpatrick gives them to move, and also invites Michael to live with them in the gatehouse until that time. Michael proves himself to be handsome, handy with his fists, and a good singer, but not too bright. He agrees to Darby's requests.

That night Darby goes off to fetch Fitzpatrick's horse from the fields. The horse leads Darby to an abandoned well and then, with the surprising viciousness and malign intelligence of a horse who is actually a mischievous fairy creature called a pooka, rears up and knocks Darby in. Darby awakes to finds himself lying in a cavern at the bottom of the well where he eventually finds scores of leprechauns, including the becrowned leprechaun leader King Brian, all dancing and partying. The leprechauns had learned that Darby had been relieved of his job and, in light of their many battles of wit over the years, King Brian decided to give Darby a place to live, with the minor caveat that Darby can never leave Knocknasheega, the leprechaun home, again.

Darby has no intention of remaining prisoner of the leprechauns, so he plays "The Fox Chase" on Brian's Stradivarius violin to trick the foolish leprechauns into opening the mountain and leaving all together on a fox hunt. Darby escapes, only to later meet King Brian at the Fitzpatrick estate when Brian seeks to bring Darby back to Knocknasheega. Darby again uses tricks, this time to get the king to spend all night in a drinking game with a jug of poitín, which allows Darby to capture the leprechaun at sunrise when a portion of the leprechaun magic has no effect. Since Darby has caught him, Brian grants him wishes, offering as many wishes as he'd like, but Darby knows, from past experience losing his wishes, that wishing more than three will reverse them all. Darby's first wish is for Brian to stay by his side for two weeks or until Darby runs out of wishes. Later, Darby meets Michael at the estate and, frustrated that Brian has changed himself into the shape of a rabbit to avoid Michael's gaze, states thoughtlessly that he wishes that Michael could see Brian. Indeed, King Brian laughs, Michael can see him in the form of a rabbit. This thoughtless comment charges Darby his second wish.

Upon returning to the gatehouse, King Brian warns Darby that he's taking too long to think up his wishes and Darby admits that he's having trouble thinking up his last wish because he's not interested in material wealth, rather, he wants Katie to meet someone who can be a good partner. Without charging a wish, King Brian promises to help Katie meet someone. He approaches both Michael and Katie in their beds during the night and instructs them to meet together next Sunday. That morning the two young people meet and flirtatiously recite Irish poetry together. Michael playfully chases Katie down the hill Knocknasheega, where the two run across Pony Sugrue, the town bully, unseasonably dressed in a three-piece wool suit and ready with a series of insults. Michael and Pony prepare to fist-fight, but Katie stands in the way. This displeases Michael, who later confronts Katie to demand she no longer prevent his violent behavior. She sassily refuses, so Michael roughly grabs her. Katie sees Michael's manhandling as a sexual signal, so she closes her eyes in anticipation of a kiss. Michael, however, walks off, to Katie's dismay and the dismay of King Brian and Darby, who are secretly spying on Katie's love life from a nearby shed. Katie, undeterred by Michael's violence and rejection, runs to Michael and aggressively kisses him. This prompts King Brian to dance a jig, hopeful that Darby will finally make his last wish, but Darby answers that he can't make his wish on a Sunday. King Brian will just have to wait.

The next morning word spreads through the town that Darby is gathering at the local pub to make his third wish. Meanwhile, Pony's mother, Sheelah, has been conspiring with a local postal worker to read the townspeople's mail. She thusly learns about Darby's firing and conspires with the complicit postal worker to ensure that Katie, also, learns the truth. Sheelah also motivates Pony by abusively insulting his manhood, demanding that Pony ruin Michael and take Michael's coveted place as Lord Fitzpatrick's hired laborer.

Sheela succeeds in getting the news of the impending eviction to Katie, who angrily confronts Michael. Michael defends himself by blaming Darby for the deception and tries to solve the problem by, once again, grabbing Katie by the upper arms. It is at this moment that Michael senses an opening to propose marriage, but he has grossly misjudged his timing. Katie refuses and storms out of the gatehouse. Enraged, she goes to the crowded pub and, before Darby can make his final wish, seizes the bag that holds King Brian. The leprechaun king instantly changes to rabbit form, jumps out of the bag and runs off to the laughter of the pub-goers.

That night, back at the estate, Michael again violently grabs Katie, who escapes by repeatedly pummeling Michael in the head and causing him to release her and stagger away. She runs into the fields to find a horse so she can escape to shelter elsewhere. Undeterred by Katie's desperate attempts to flee, Michael fetches a lantern so he can follow her, but is ambushed by Pony, who has secreted himself in the estate with assaultive intent. He clobbers the surprised Michael, rendering him unconscious with a single head-shot with a club and pours liquor all over him, intending that Lord Fitzpatrick will assume Michael is a drunk and fire him. It is Darby, however, who finds Michael in his search for Katie. Michael and Darby begin arguing about why Katie was allowed to go into the fields at night, and Darby exclaims that the horse Katie was seeking to try to escape the estate is, as he learned two weeks previously but neglected to tell anyone else, a pooka. Sure enough, it is soon revealed that the horse is leading Katie toward the shrieking cries of a banshee. Michael and Darby run toward the hill Knocknasheega to find her. There, Darby finds Katie unconscious on the hill. The ghostlike banshee appears, whom Darby somehow banishes by hitting with a thrown lantern. The lantern passes through the banshee, explodes into an oily fireball and quickly catches a large bunch of shrubbery on fire.

The two men bring Katie home, where she is ministered to by Father Murphy. Father Murphy prepares to give Katie last rites when Darby hears the sound of the banshee at the door. The banshee points out the Dullahan on a death coach, who has come to transport Katie's soul. Darby, desperate, calls out to King Brian, who appears and sadly informs him that not even his wishes can stop the Death Coach from leaving without a taken soul. Darby, then, uses his third wish to take Katie's place on the Death Coach. King Brian reluctantly acknowledges his power to grant the wish, which he does. Inside the Death Coach, Brian appears, consoles Darby, lets him know that Katie's fever was healed, then tricks Darby into wishing he would have Brian's company in the afterlife. This counts as a fourth wish and Brian voids all his others. Darby is freed from the Death Coach and returns to Katie, who continues her miraculous recovery. Michael later violently confronts Pony at the pub and beats him into unconsciousness. The movie closes as Michael and Katie sing happily together and ride off kissing in a wagon as a smiling Darby drives toward Knocknasheega.

Cast[]

Production[]

Walt Disney conceived the film during a trip to Ireland with the Irish Folklore Commission in 1947.[4] The following year, Disney announced he would make a film titled Three Wishes, based on a script from Watkin about an Irishman battling a leprechaun, which was to involve both live action and animation. However, the script was never produced.[5][6] Disney took a second trip to Ireland in 1956 and announced a new film that October, The Three Wishes of Darby O'Gill, based on Kavanagh's 1903 book Darby O'Gill and the Good People, retaining Watkin as writer. Disney studied Gaelic folklore for three months at the Dublin Library and received input from seanchaí while developing the film.[7] During casting in London in February 1958, the film's title became Darby O'Gill and the Little People.[8]

Barry Fitzgerald was Disney's first choice to play both Darby and Brian.[7] Sharpe and O'Dea were instead cast in the lead roles after Disney spotted O'Dea in a pantomime.[9] Munro was cast in March after Disney signed her for a five-year contract, while Connery was borrowed from 20th Century Fox, where he was then under contract.[10] Filming started on the Disney backlot in May 1958, though some location work was done at Albertson Ranch in the San Fernando Valley.[11]

Munro and Connery sing a duet in the film titled "Pretty Irish Girl",[12] apparently dubbing over vocals by Brendan O'Dowda and Ruby Murray,[13][14] which was released in the UK as a single in 1959. A demo of Connery singing the song solo was included in the 1992 compilation The Music of Disney: A Legacy of Song.[15]

Dell Comics produced a comic book adaptation of the film in August 1959.[16][17]

Reception[]

Writing for The New York Times, A. H. Weiler praised the cast, but described Connery as "merely tall, dark, and handsome", and called the film an "overpoweringly charming concoction of standard Gaelic tall stories, fantasy and romance."[18] Variety called the film a "rollicking Gaelic fantasy" with "meticulously painstaking production" and "a gem" of a performance from Sharpe, though Connery was called "artificial" and "the weakest link in Robert Stevenson's otherwise distinguished direction."[19] Charles Stinson of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "Being a Disney product, it is as technically perfect a job as can be had; the Technicolor, the camera work, the special effects, the Irish music and all are a rich feast for anyone's eye and ear."[20] The Monthly Film Bulletin called the special effects "brilliantly executed" but found that "all attempts at Irish charm seem pretty synthetic, a notable exception being the playing of Jimmy O'Dea, who makes King Brian the most likeable and beguiling leprechaun yet to appear on the screen."[21]

Leonard Maltin praises the film in his book The Disney Films, calling it "not only one of Disney's best films, but [also it] is certainly one of the best fantasies ever put on film."[22] In a later article he included it among a list of outstanding lesser-known Disney films.

The film has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 15 reviews, with an average grade of 7 out of 10.[23]

Munro won the 1960 Golden Globe for New Star of the Year for her performance in the film.[24]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ a b "Details". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. American Film Institute. Retrieved November 16, 2018.
  2. ^ "1959: Probable Domestic Take", Variety, 6 January 1960 p 34
  3. ^ "Big Rental Films of 1969", Variety, 7 January 1970 p 15
  4. ^ Tony Tracy, 'When Disney Met Delargy: Darby O'Gill and the Irish Folklore Commission', Béaloideas: Journal of the Irish Folklore Society, Vol. 78, 2010 pp 50-59.
  5. ^ "Looking at Hollywood". Chicago Daily Tribune. 30 March 1948. p. 19.
  6. ^ "HOLLYWOOD DOSSIER". New York Times. 6 February 1958. p. X7.
  7. ^ a b "Walt Disney Plans Irish Fantasy Film". Los Angeles Times. 28 October 1957. p. C14.
  8. ^ "M-G-M SIGNS IVES TO BE 'BIG DADDY'". The New York Times. 21 January 1958. p. 34.
  9. ^ "Disney Gets Leprechaun King in Ireland". Chicago Daily Tribune. 26 February 1958. p. b4.
  10. ^ "You'll Love Janet Munro!: Bright-Eyed British Film Beauty Has Everything, Including a Long Term Disney Contract". Chicago Daily Tribune. 13 July 1958. p. f30.
  11. ^ Scheuer, Philip K. (12 May 1958). "Disney Courts Little People: Leprechauns Overrun Studio as 'Darby O'Gill' Is Created". Los Angeles Times. p. C9.
  12. ^ Duet between Connery and Munro on YouTube.
  13. ^ "Gifted Irish tenor linked with Percy French", The Irish Times, 2 March 2002
  14. ^ O'Dowda-Murray recording on YouTube.
  15. ^ 45 cat 45 cat collectors catalog listing of record.
  16. ^ "Dell Four Color #1024". Grand Comics Database.
  17. ^ Dell Four Color #1024 at the Comic Book DB (archived from the original)
  18. ^ New York Times Review. Retrieved September 23, 2008
  19. ^ "Darby O'Gill and the Little People". Variety: 6. April 29, 1959.
  20. ^ Stinson, Charles (June 27, 1959). "'Darby O'Gill' Rich in Irish Atmosphere". Los Angeles Times. p. 11.
  21. ^ "Darby O'Gill and the Little People". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 26 (306): 87. July 1959.
  22. ^ Maltin, Leonard (2000). The Disney Films. Disney Editions. p. 416. ISBN 978-0-7868-8527-5.
  23. ^ "Darby O'Gill and the Little People". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved March 18, 2020.
  24. ^ "Darby O'Gill and the Little People".

External links[]

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